The Voyage of the Morning Light

by Marina Endicott

  —CANDACE FERTILE, Quill & Quire

  “A beautifully paced examination of what makes us different, and why that matters. It’s also a travel story, and a richly layered look at seafaring culture through the eyes of a girl en route to becoming a woman.”

  —LIANE FAULDER, Edmonton Journal

  Praise for

  MARINA ENDICOTT

  “Marina Endicott is a sweet-natured but sharp-eyed and quick-tongued social observer in the Jane Austen–Barbara Pym–Anne Tyler tradition, who can wring love, revulsion and hilarity in a single page.”

  —T. F. RIGELHOF, Globe and Mail

  “There’s heartbreak, there’s joy, there are parts where you cry—and it’s very high quality writing.”

  —MARGARET ATWOOD, Giller Prize jury remarks for Good to a Fault

  “Absolutely ingenious. . . . [A]s you were going along, you were thinking—turning the pages—‘This is simply delightful.’”

  —COLM TÓIBÍN, Giller Prize jury remarks for Good to a Fault

  “Impish humour, a deep reservoir of humanity and a gift for quirky, evocative phrasing. These have always been [Marina Endicott’s] strengths.”

  —JACK KIRCHHOFF, Literary Review of Canada

  “A limpid, witty, humane talent to watch.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Reading a new novel by Marina Endicott, I am often reminded of the work of the late Carol Shields, the casually understated depth of her talent. It’s not just that Endicott shares with . . . Shields an impressive skill, a comfort in writing in whatever form or approach she chooses; she also shares with Shields a fundamental, deep-seated humanity.”

  —ROBERT J. WIERSEMA, Toronto Star

  Also by

  MARINA ENDICOTT

  Open Arms (2001)

  Good to a Fault (2008)

  The Little Shadows (2011)

  Close to Hugh (2015)

  MARINA ENDICOTT is the author of Good to a Fault, which won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book, Canada and the Caribbean, and was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize; The Little Shadows, which was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award; and Close to Hugh, which was also longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Endicott has been an actor, director, playwright and editor, and now lives in Alberta.

  A NOTE ABOUT THE TYPE

  The Voyage of the Morning Light has been set in Janson, a misnamed typeface designed in or about 1690 by Nicholas Kis, a Hungarian in Amsterdam. In 1919 the original matrices became the property of the Stempel Foundry in Frankfurt, Germany. Janson is an old-style book face of excellent clarity and sharpness, featuring concave and splayed serifs, and a marked contrast between thick and thin strokes.

  The Voyage of the Morning Light is a work of historical fiction. Apart from the well-known actual people, events, and locales that figure in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales, or to living persons, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Marina Endicott

  First American Edition 2020

  Originally published in Canada under the title The Difference

  Interior images: (ships) from 3,800 Early Advertising Cuts © Dover Publications, Inc.; (palm, coral) from The Plant Kingdom Compendium © Jim Harter; (turtle, dolphin) from Animals © L’Aventurine

  All rights reserved

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact W. W. Norton Special Sales at specialsales@wwnorton.com or 800-233-4830

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

  ISBN 978-1-324-00706-7 (pbk.)

  ISBN 978-1-324-00707-4 (ebk.)

  W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110

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